Antigym® or Antigymastique® is a body work method developed by French physiotherapist Thérèse Bertherat in the 1970s. Its popularity has spread outside of France as Antigym practitioners have brought the method across the world, particularly to South America and Europe. Helsinki Times spoke to trained Antigym practitioner, Sonu Manglani, about the method after one of her classes.

THE CLASS takes place in a bright, well-lit room. We begin by standing on our mats, rotating our knees in and out to get a feel of the way different parts of our body are connected to one another. Sonu gives instructions and asks questions as we move through each subtle movement slowly.

The bright summer nights have mixed up the daily routines of many holidaymakers, and meal times are also in disarray. After endless barbeques and late nights, it is advisable to ease oneself gradually back onto the rails.

Nobody ever decides to quit doing sports. It just ends or slowly becomes more and more rare and eventually sinks to an embarrassing level. The reason is always the same: a break.

A small, innocent pause can kick off a year-long slacking off period meant to last originally either a week or two, after which you'd pull yourself together again. The reason may have been summer holiday, flu, travel, work commitments, kids or a backache.

Several serious illnesses have been reported in the United States after parents' refusal of a vitamin K jab to be given to their baby. American magazine Mother Jones was the first to report this.

At the children's hospital at Vanderbildt University in Nashville, Tennessee, for example, seven children have been treated for internal bleeding caused by lack of vitamin K. The condition at its worst is very serious and can lead to permanent neurological problems if the bleeding takes place in the brain, or even to death.

“We know that it is very difficult to change psychopathic characteristics in adults. But this commonly held view is changing as we are accumulating research data showing that such characteristics in children can be changed,” explains Taina Laajasalo, a professor of psychology.

A research team from the University of Helsinki compiled a review of several international studies and the conclusions have now been published in the medical journal Duodecim.

A STUDY conducted by the Universities of Helsinki and Turku in collaboration with the Swedish Skövde University was able to determine that a hallucination produced by hypnosis was real by measuring the brains electrical activity.

During the study, a test was conducted with two highly hypnosis-prone persons who were shown figures, such as a square, triangle or circle, which were coloured either blue or red. The researchers then left the test subjects with a suggestion while they were under hypnosis, stating that a specific figure is always the same colour, for example: “triangles are always red.”

A mother with small children calls 112 after having collapsed on the kitchen floor because of mental problems. No ambulance arrives, however, because “mothers with small children are always a little tired”.

This is how Päivi Storgård describes bipolar affective disorder in her book. Even though the book, called Keinulaudalla, is a work of fiction, the experiences described in it are true.

A variety of experiences are had every day in Finnish hospitals by patients and their families.

Few topics have been so endlessly discussed and so bitterly disputed during the past few years as the future of Finnish healthcare. In an era where more and more people use private services, the public system can appear to some to be unwieldy and inefficient. On the other hand, others perceive it to be a massive step up from services on hand in a lot of other Western countries.

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Helsinki Times is the very first leading English language publication in Finland established in 2007, covering Finland related news on daily basis. A weekly print edition of Helsinki Times was published from March 2007 up until Feb. 2015.

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